they fall under S. Paul’s criticism in that “they desire to be rich,” and are therefore devoid of the spirit of sacrifice that would transform their actual poverty into a spiritual value.  But all the powers and energies of life do in fact constitute life’s capital.  A poor boy has great possessions in the gifts of nature that God has granted him.  He may use this capital as he will.  He may be governed by “the desire to be rich,” or by the desire to consecrate himself to the will and service of God—­and the working out of life will be accordingly.  He may become very rich economically, or he may devote his life to the service of his fellows as physician, teacher, missionary, or in numberless other paths.  Once more, the meaning of life is in its voluntary direction, and whatever may be his economic state, he may, if he will, be “rich toward God.”

If what we are seeking is to follow the Gospel-life, if we are seeking to express toward man the spirit of the Master, we find abundant field for the exercise of this spirit of sacrifice in our daily relations with others.  S. Paul’s rule of life:  “Look not every man to his own things, but every man also to the things of others,” is the practical rule of the sacrificed will.  It seeks to fulfil the service of the Master by taking the spirit of the Master—­His helpfulness, His consideration, His sympathy—­with one into the detail of the day’s work.  It is one of the peculiarities of human nature that it finds it quite possible to work itself up to an occasional accomplishment, especially in a spectacular setting, of spiritual works, which it finds itself quite impotent to do under the commonplace routine of life.  The race experience is accurately enough summed up in the cynical proverb:  “No man is a hero to his valet.”  It expresses the fact that in ordinary circumstances, and under commonplace temptations, we do not succeed in holding life to the accomplishment which is ours when we are, as it were, on dress parade.  In other words, we respond to the opinions we desire to create in others; and the spirit of sanctity is a response not to public opinion, but to the mind and thought of God.  When we seek the mind of Christ, and seek to reproduce that mind in our own lives, seek to be possessed by it, then we shall gladly render back to God all life’s riches which we have received from Him, and acknowledge in the true spirit of poverty that “all things come of Thee, O Lord, and of Thine own have we given Thee.”

The world has got into a very ill way of thinking of God as force.  Force seems in the popular mind to be the synonym of power.  The only power that we understand is the power that compels, that secures the execution of its will by physical or moral constraint.  With this conception of power in mind men are continually asking:  “Why does not God do this or that?  If he be God and wills goodness, why does He not execute goodness, use power to accomplish it?”